Solitude
by Lancelotlaureate
Summary: Steven stays behind in the TARDIS alone when he gets a headache, but is unable to explain the strange occurrences that plague him.


Steven hadn't had a headache as severe since he'd been a child, but the furious pounding in his temples was enough to stop him venturing outside with the Doctor and Dodo and getting into trouble on an alien world. He worried about them of course, they were both known to wander into dangerous situations very easily but at that moment he couldn't think about it, he could only think of the pain surging in his head and his sore and tired eyes.

Drinking a liquid medication from the food machine, he gulped it down hastily and made his way to his bedroom to lie down. He lay on his back, gently closing his eyes and feeling relief for the briefest of moments. The Doctor's medicine didn't take long to start working, the formula even more advanced than what was available in his own era.

As the medicine took effect and he felt the pain escaping from within him, he took a deep breath and revelled in the silence. There was barely enough time during the adventures to just breathe, to be alone, to listen to nothing, sit on the bed and hear his own heart thumping in his chest. On Mechanus it had been his worst nightmare and the thought of spending eternity alone always terrified him but sometimes in his new life, once in a while, away from all the chaos of travelling, he needed the peace and quiet that solitude brought.

He'd only been daydreaming for several minutes when he heard a distant whisper resounding in his ear. His eyes opened.

"Dodo, is that you?"

As he said the words he felt cold air escape his lips and he shivered. He didn't remember it being so cold in there. Hearing no response, he lifted himself off the bed and made his way toward the door.

"I'm coming, I'm coming."

As he walked along the small corridor to the console room, he heard the noise again but this time there seemed to be two or three unfamiliar voices talking at the same time as though they were far away. He hesitantly approached the door, fearful of intruders and took a deep breath as he carefully listened to the continuing faint whispers coming from inside the room. He reached for the door handle- his long fingers touching it, taking a moment to breathe before he opened it.

He heard a soft voice. "Steven."

He spun around upon hearing the voice, taking his hand away from the door and peering behind him expecting to see the Doctor and Dodo but instead there was just the emptiness of the corridor and the dimly lit bulbs on the wall- and silence, complete silence.

He shivered and then reached for the handle again, pushing it and stepping inside the room as though he had never been through the door before and was stepping into a magical realm rather than a familiar space. Nothing greeted him, just the simplicity of the console room and the motionless rotor in the centre- no noise except the gentle humming of the ship's systems- and no Doctor and Dodo in sight.

He leaned forward as he arrived beside the console and peered down at it to examine the buttons. As he turned one of the dials to initiate the lights, he was instead greeted with the faint sound of music playing through the ship. A crackling old-fashioned tune that sounded like the ancient jazz music from the 20th century rang out around him and he jumped back startled, completely bewildered as to how he'd managed to produce it. It'd never happened before and he was sure the Doctor would not have installed it.

"Fault maybe?" He sighed. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Steven."

He covered his ears with his hands as the music continued to play- it was distracting and he couldn't find where it was coming from- no speaker or computer in sight to turn it off. The twisting of the exact same dial and an irritable punch to the console didn't help either.

"What's going on?" he mouthed as he walked toward the fault locator bank which was located behind a series of glass partitions. He checked the dials and switches there, looking inquisitively at the little screen which showed nothing and was simply blank. "No faults?"

As the music played on around him, Steven spied a flash of colour reflected in the glass partition and spun around on the spot to investigate. As he did he was greeted with the sight of two unknown figures by the console, definitely people, but they were moving around his vision quickly and scattered around like a series of photographs, taken in rapid succession rather than resembling a solid image. He stepped back a pace, his body tensing as he watched the figures move around him, floating, seeming to dance to the rhythm of the music that was playing. His shaking hand found the glass and touched it for what felt like support. What was happening? He took his hand off the glass panel, leaving a hand print that slowly began to vanish.

He rubbed his eyes quickly, considering that the illusions were perhaps a result of his severe headache and the medication he had taken. But why could he still hear the music? Who were the people?

He covered his ears again to drown out the noise and as he took his hands away a second time, the music had stopped, replaced by what now felt so quiet, just the faint familiar hum he was used to. He spun around on the spot, anxiously looking around in every direction of the room around him. He caught sight of another faded figure by the door and he raced across the room to follow it. As the figure of the dark haired woman in a long dress or robe walked through the open door, he continued behind her with a determined stride.

"Excuse me, who are you?" he stammered.

The figure stopped abruptly as though she had finally heard, but the back of her remained away as if she did not want to face him. He slowly reached out his hand and extended it towards her shoulder. He laid his hand gently upon her, and waited patiently, his heartbeat quickening with a strange anticipation. She slowly turned around, almost robotically to face him and he let out a scream of surprise as Katarina's face stared back at him with confusion.

"Steven, you're ill, you must rest," she said softly in the sweet voice he'd almost forgotten. As she said the words, she appeared to be looking through him blankly, solemnly, eerily. He tried to grab her shoulders but as he did, she faded away before him, lost from him for a second time.

"Katarina!" he yelled, strangely familiar to the last time he called out for her, a time he'd rather forget.

He rubbed his eyes and then ran his fingers through his thick unruly hair. He stood motionless, confused, lost, and completely bewildered. All the feelings of regret, sadness and remorse rushed through him, and his deep fear of the idea of borrowed time catching up with him hung heavy on his heart.

"I've got to find the Doctor and Dodo," he said with determination, but it was clear that even though he knew the layout of the ship, he was starting to feel dizzy and disorientated, his headache re-surfacing.

There was a flash, and then another, and then two more, three, short bursts of colour. Some kind of light energy flickered around the walls of the corridor as though from a crystal or gemstone. The light appeared to move further and further away from him and he had to pick up his pace to follow it. As he ventured around a sharp corner, the light vanished and he was left facing a wall of roundels, closed in at a dead end in the TARDIS maze of endlessness. He pounded his fists hard on the wall.

"Is there anyone there?"

To his surprise there came a reply in a low soft voice. "I'm here."

Of all the people he expected to see at that moment, it wasn't Oliver Harper his friend and companion who travelled with them months earlier. His visions or whatever they were had first conjured up Katarina and now he was seeing Oliver standing still like a statue at the end of the corridor. What on earth was happening? He was a doubtful man and the notions of the supernatural made him sceptical yet he couldn't understand the occurrence in the ship and at that moment couldn't rule out the possibility of it being something otherworldly and bizarre.

"Oliver is that really you?"

He stared deeply at his friend's face which looked very real before him and not ghostly and transparent as the figures in the console room. He desperately wanted the man to be Oliver, wanted him to be real, alive, breathing, and safe. Steven's first instinct was to embrace the friend he'd missed so much, and as his arms tried to find Oliver's body and tried to make contact, the figure vanished and Steven nearly tumbled forward as he attempted to cling onto nothing but the air around him. He looked down at his shaking hands.

Manoeuvring himself out of the dead end, he made his way to the area of the ship he was more familiar with and sighed with relief when he recognised the door to his own bedroom. He raced inside, running over to the mirror to look at his reflection.

He looked into the mirror, touching his face. "Still me."

He laughed, thinking how absurd he sounded. He splashed some cold water onto his face and then his eyes looked upwards slowly. Gazing at the mirror, he shouted in terror as he suddenly saw the reflection was no longer his own but instead the waxy lined face of Sara Kingdom who had aged to death on Kembel. He forced his eyes to look away but for a few moments was drawn to the image and the cold, lifeless, death-like stare.

…

Footsteps. His own footsteps were all he could hear as he headed into the food machine area that was set back in an alcove off the console room. Soon his heavy footsteps were not the only noise, and he heard the sound of the food machine springing to life, beeping in the way it did when someone was operating it. At first it appeared as though it was working alone but as Steven focused his eyes he could seen the Doctor's previous companions, Ian and Barbara, drinking by the machine, laughing and joking as if nothing peculiar was happening at all.

"Ian? Barbara?" he called, feeling hopeful and fearful at the same time. No reply. He tried again. "Can you hear me?" Still no reply.

He was about to give up when suddenly the two of them turned to look in his direction. He tried to wave at them but they peered right through him vacantly. Ian suddenly stared at him, gazing at him intensely, though it occurred to Steven that the man couldn't actually see him and was simply staring into space. He was alone.

No matter how many times he called after them, they never responded to him, just stood there looking through him as though he didn't exist.

Deciding he was having no success trying to communicate with the previous companions, he strolled aimlessly into Dodo's bedroom, peering around the door first as a precaution to whatever unusual lay behind it, and second to stop the dizziness that came with all the rushing around. He sighed with relief when he saw Dodo lying on the bed. He hadn't heard her return to the ship but could see she was asleep, her short cropped dark hair falling into her eyes.

"Dodo! Thank goodness you're back. I thought I was going around the twist."

But as he stepped closer he realised something was wrong. Either Dodo's features had changed dramatically in the seconds he'd been talking, or the girl on the bed had never been Dodo at all. As he looked closer at her she suddenly opened her eyes to look up at him. He jumped slightly, startled by the movement. Staring at her, he could see she held a resemblance to his friend but it was also not the face he knew well. The girl glared at him with menacing eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she said coldly. Unlike Ian and Barbara, he reasoned that perhaps she could see him clearly just as he could see her.

"What am I doing here?" Steven repeated but as he said the words, Barbara walked into the room and up to the foot of the bed, right where he stood. As Steven tried to talk, Barbara once again ignored his presence and instead directed her questions at the young girl. For a few moments Steven was so confused by the scene that he couldn't take in what either of the women were saying, unable to focus long enough on their conversation- their voices distant and mumbling.

He strained to listen and as he finally managed to make out their words, he heard Barbara utter. "Where would it hide?"

To Which Susan responded. "In one of us."

Steven felt his legs give way and his heartbeat quicken. Had they meant him? Did they think he was the presence in the ship? Why couldn't they see him properly? Maybe it wasn't about them not being real- maybe he himself wasn't real. Maybe he was the intruder, maybe he didn't exist anymore, had died on an adventure and had just not realised it yet. He shivered.

He found himself running to his own room again, clinging onto the walls as he struggled to remain upright, feeling as though he was not quite capable, as though everything around him was a blur. He found the mirror once more and peered into it anxiously. He wasn't sure what he expected to see or not see but when he saw his own face staring back at him he was relieved. Had he expected to see Sara again? Did he expect to see an empty space? He didn't know what to think. He felt so lost, helpless. There was nothing to explain what he was experiencing, and the question he dreaded most- who was he?

The sudden whispering noise coming from the console room did nothing to slow his rapid heartbeat, and he cautiously with reluctance made his way to the console room unsure of what next horror would delight him there. He'd never thought of himself as a person easily afraid but when he didn't understand something it was the biggest terror of all.

Darkness greeted him as soon as he entered the room. He'd never seen it so dark, usually the whiteness of the interior gave him a headache, and seeing it so black made it feel almost dead somehow. His eyes couldn't make out exact things but he could see shapes and outlines, shadows and light. He spied the outline of the TARDIS console itself, shimmering slightly with an ethereal glow, spinning around on its own axis, the hexagonal unit twisting furiously with the figure of a young woman upon it, lying across it, her body glimmering and sparkly.

"Hello?" He attempted to talk to her but she couldn't hear him and within a few moments the darkness was replaced with the familiar brightness of the room, almost though good replaced evil within minutes. Checking the console over for signs of a malfunction, Steven stopped still like a statue, unable to blink when he noticed a drop of blood fall from one of the levers, causing a tiny splash of red onto the floor, and then another, drip, drip. Finally, gaining the nerve to look down, he saw his old friend Christopher Marlowe dying from a stab wound to the chest, the blood flowing out of him onto the floor.

"Kit…" He could only stammer as he got on his knees and held Marlowe in his arms, reliving the horrific memory one more time, cradling his friend as he had done before. What evil thing was reminding him of this horrible moment? He bit his lip to stop the trembling. "Why this, why show me this?"

He pulled the hair away from Marlowe's eyes gently but soon the strands between his fingers were nothing but the air and Marlowe was gone, vanished just like everything else strange in the ship had done. He stayed on the floor for a few moments, crouched down, hunched over into a ball shape, unwilling to move on and face the next horror. Goose-pimples formed on his lower arms and he shivered, feeling the temperature drop suddenly, feeling the hairs stand on end as the cold gathered around him.

Getting up from his place on the floor, he stood up slowly, wrapping his arms around himself as the temperature in the room dropped. He could hear a cracking sound under his shoes and with each footstep a creak. He looked down to see that the entire floor was no longer there and was now replaced with a layer of snow. Quickly looking back at the console, he watched in amazement as icicles began to form on the rotor and white sleet fell within the rotor itself resembling a giant snow globe. He stared around him dumbfounded, forgetting the fear for a moment as the beauty eclipsed it. The beauty ceased however when he saw the body of the woman on the floor, her face obscured by her long flowing red hair which too was covered in a sprinkling of snow. He bent down to examine her and noticed she was breathing but the little nudges he gave did nothing to wake her.

Wondering what to do, he looked around him for inspiration. She was already wrapped up warm in some kind of poncho and she was in no immediate danger so he let her be and sat with his own thoughts for a moment. What was happening? Had he been transported somewhere or merely hallucinated the woman and all the other things he'd seen? Was he being haunted by ghosts or was he the ghost? He couldn't remember what felt real anymore, what to look for and what to believe.

He suddenly felt a drop of water on his neck. Wiping it away, he gazed upward to find that the icicles were melting, fast too, dripping furiously down the sides of the warm console. He got to his feet, nearly slipping on the wet floor. He turned back to look at the woman but just like that, she was gone.

It was at that moment Steven heard an authoritative bellow coming from the direction of the doors. He was overjoyed when he saw the Doctor and Dodo wading through the now flooded TARDIS as they made their way toward him.

The Doctor seemed annoyed, angry even, and glared accusingly at Steven. "What have you been up to, dear boy?"

Steven ran his hand through his hair. He didn't know what to feel at that moment. He was so happy to see them. "This is not my doing, Doctor. There's been people running about and then disappearing. I even saw your old companions. I thought I was going mad, still not sure I'm not."

The Doctor softened and felt Steven's brow for a fever. Dodo watched on concerned as the Doctor checked him over. She could tell just by looking at him that he'd been through an ordeal.

"You don't seem feverous," the Doctor said. "You look a little disorientated but I don't think there's anything wrong."

"And how do you explain the water?" said Dodo.

There was a loud chirruping noise coming from the direction of the doors. Dodo instantly grabbed Steven's arms and shuffled up beside him for comfort but the Doctor stopped still, seemingly recognising the sound.

"What is that?" Dodo asked, holding her hands over her ears.

The Doctor scratched his chin. "If I'm not mistaken, that's the cry of a Zarbi."

Steven and Dodo looked at each other none the wiser but the Doctor stared hard at the doors and then flinched in surprise when he saw the figures of Ian, Barbara and Vicki standing beside them. They were talking quietly together and hadn't seemed to have noticed him looking at them.

"Extraordinary," he said.

"Who are those people?" Dodo said, now too seeing three strangers by the TARDIS doors.

"Previous companions of mine, my dear."

Steven smiled. "Well at least I know I'm not going crazy."

"No, my boy, no, there's no weird presence here and no hallucinations, what we're seeing is simply echoes of the past, possibly the future too."

"You mean there's an actual reason for it?"

"I'm not sure I could tell you what it means, young man, or why it's happening. Time travelling is a tricky business and you do leave rather big footprints. Sometimes it's quite easy to step on one's own, especially inside the ship itself." He chuckled to himself but Steven wasn't satisfied with the response. How did it explain why the TARDIS was showing their past and future? Was it a message or did it simply happen as a fault? Whatever the reason he suspected the Doctor wasn't going to explain or rather he didn't have the faintest clue how to.

"I think I need a lie down," Steven said. "Just one thing when I go to lie on the bed, will there be one of your past of future companions with me?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Well, I can't be certain until I can sort this mess out. Taking off may set the ship back to its normal functions. In the meantime, maybe don't take a shower hmmm?"

He looked at Steven and let out an almighty series of chuckles. "Remember Steven my boy, what Bryon said, it is in solitude where we are least alone."


End file.
